Plans for charities to reveal the number of fundraising complaints received

Under the new amendments proposed to the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill (the Bill), charities with incomes of more than £1m a year will be required to show in their annual reports the number of complaints they received about their fundraising activities.

At present, the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) collects and publishes the total number of complaints reported, but does not publish information about how many complaints were received by each charity. However, in light of recent high-profile cases, the effectiveness of the current system of self-regulation has been called into question.

The amendments proposed also provide that charities (with incomes of more than £1m a year) would have to include statements on their approach to fundraising, whether they have signed up to any voluntary scheme(s) for regulating fundraising and if there was any failure to comply with the standards of any such scheme(s).

Furthermore, it is proposed that the legislation would also require the charities to report on the approaches they have taken to protect vulnerable people and members of the public from:

unreasonable intrusion on a person's privacy;

unreasonably persistent approaches for the purpose of soliciting or otherwise procuring money or other property on behalf of the charity; and

placing undue pressure on a person to give money or other property.

These changes will require charities and organisations that raise money on their behalf to include in the contracts between them how vulnerable people are to be protected and how compliance would be monitored.